


Former Sweetheart of the Boy-Who-Lived Marries Former Death Eater in Secret Ceremony

by StrawberryLane



Series: Love Charade [2]
Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Assumptions, Daily Prophet, F/M, Fake Marriage, Forced Marriage, Gen, Gossip, Marriage Law Challenge, Marriage of Convenience, POV Outsider, Post-Sirius Black in Azkaban, Press and Tabloids, Relationship Reveal, The Ministry of Magic (Harry Potter) is Terrible
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-24
Updated: 2019-04-24
Packaged: 2020-01-25 22:49:25
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,655
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18584206
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/StrawberryLane/pseuds/StrawberryLane
Summary: Pansy cannot for the life of her imagine what Black could be holding over Granger's head to convince her to marry him in a plot to help him avoid returning to Azkaban. Black has spent the last couple of years on the run from the aurors and being featured in the press as a raging and insane supporter of Granger's best friend's lifelong enemy.Hardly husband-material, no matter how desperate Granger is.





	Former Sweetheart of the Boy-Who-Lived Marries Former Death Eater in Secret Ceremony

**Author's Note:**

> This is a kind of sequel to my other fic, Forget me not.

When the delightful news of the mudblood Granger's new status as a married woman hits the old, magic-filled corridors of Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry, Pansy Parkinson promptly chokes on her morning drink of cranberry juice where she sits in the Great Hall, enjoying breakfast and reading the both newly printed and newly delivered copy of the Daily Prophet that is screaming out the news in big, bold headlines. The rumour has been going around since last night, when Granger was supposedly spotted wearing a huge, sparkly ring on her finger, but this confirms it. Someone actually went and married the bloody bookworm.

Glancing around herself for a quick moment before muttering a quick, quiet spell to vanish the evidence of her unfortunate spitting of brilliantly red cranberry juice, Pansy quickly refills her glass, takes a sip and concentrates on the dark-inked print before her. The article, which references multiple anonymous sources throughout, is written by none other than Rita Skeeter, a discovery which makes Pansy snicker with glee. It's a well known fact that there's no love lost between Skeeter and Granger after the fiasco that was Pansy's fourth year at Hogwarts. This is going to be hilarious.

Her father often tells her she should be above believing the crap the Prophet – and most of all, Skeeter – keeps churning out, but Pansy finds she often rather enjoys the pieces written by the newspaper's most well known contributor. Her pieces are all fun and scandalous, much like her books, and as much as Pansy doesn't believe every single word printed, she believes the articles and columns and books must contain at least some grains of truth, as not to become too outrageous. This article, front-page news as it is, promises to be just that. A little bit of scandalous, a little bit of outrageous, a little bit of truth and a handful of lies all wrapped up into one neat package, all designed to blow the reader's socks off.

There are two photographs smack dab in the middle of the page, both featuring people Pansy would have to have been blind not to recognize. One is Granger herself, looking annoyed at the sight of the camera. The photograph was probably taken in the fourth year, Pansy muses. She has a hazy, blurred, memory of Granger showing up on Viktor Krum's arm wearing that exact, dreadful dress to the Yule Ball. Oh, how Pansy had been boiling with jealousy about that. It still stings a little, the fact that Krum had gone through the trouble of asking someone like Granger to the Ball – or rather, specifically Granger, – and not someone of, say, Pansy's standing. She wouldn't even have minded Krum's half-blood status had he had the guts to ask her to attend the ball with him. But no, Krum had gone and asked the little mudblood instead, not even giving Pansy a second glance.

She won't be jealous this time, though. Of that, Pansy is more than certain. Because in the photograph side by side with Granger's is Sirius Black.

Black isn't shyly waving or looking annoyed at the sight of the camera – he's ignoring it all together, busy silently screaming and roaring at invisible presences outside of the frames of his photograph. In his photo, he's neatly wrapped up in chains and holding a plaque that informs readers of his prison-number. He looks just as much like the vampire Pansy remembers thinking he resembled when she first saw the photo back in the summer of 93 and Black had just escaped from Azkaban prison and gave the whole wizarding community in Britain an enormous fright. Pansy vividly remembers her parents discussing that turn of events quietly, heads close together, at the marble table in the dining hall back home. They hadn't meant for her to hear, Pansy knows, but she had anyway. Her mother had been worried, murmuring about how maybe they should just home-school Pansy until the madman had been caught. Her father had murmured back with logic and reasons, saying that even if Black did escape Azkaban to try to reunite with his lord and master, he'd have a hell of a time actually finding the man. After all, the Dark Lord had been gone for twelve years at that point. And there was no reason for Black to go to Hogwarts, her father had reasoned, because for all that both Pansy and her parents believe Albus Dumbledore to be an old fool, the Dark Lord had presumably feared him for a reason. Pansy's mother had argued back that no one knew what Black would do, because no one even knew how he escaped in the first place. Her father had told her that Pansy should probably have the last word, considering it was her schooling that was in jeopardy and Pansy had really wanted to go back to Hogwarts for the school year. Not because Hogwarts was better than home, but because it had Draco and her friends. So she had gone, promising her mother not to go outside by herself, ever, and everything had been fine. Until Black somehow had gotten into the castle on Halloween and slashed up the portrait that guarded the entrance to the Gryffindor Common Room, supposedly to get to Potter. And then the arguments between her parents had started up again.

Before that incident, Pansy hadn't really paid all that much attention to the supposed madman, not beyond taking occasional part in the excited gossiping of her dorm-mates and reading a few articles by the Prophet that claimed some old witch or other had spotted the fugitive somewhere in the country and how he had always managed to disappear by the time law enforcement got there. Now, she kind of wishes she'd paid more attention. Because why Hermione Granger – undeniably one of the few people Harry Potter seemingly willingly spends a large amount of time around – somehow thought it a good idea to say yes to the proposal of marriage made by one of the Dark Lord's most devoted followers, is quite unfathomable.

Granger's supposed to be clever, after all.

Pansy supposes she knows the story as well as anyone – she's certainly lived in the middle of it, these last few months, her own wedding already visible at the horizon. To Marcus Flint of all people. Pansy nearly throws up in her own mouth at the thought of tying herself to the former Slytherin. Not because he's actually a half-blood – no, she's mostly over that part of the whole thing – but because her husband-to-be is so dumb he had to repeat his final year of education. And dull. Pansy can count the deep and meaningful conversations they've had since getting engaged shortly after the news of the new marriage law hit the public on one hand. On one single finger, truth to be told. Most of the rest of their time getting reacquainted – as Marcus' mother had called it, probably imagining her son had been popular in school and sought after by all the Slytherin girls – has been spent in silence, Pansy silently fuming about her father arranging the match for her. Pansy's incredibly aware she needs to do what needs to be done when it comes to avoid being thrown in Azkaban for being an unmarried pure-blood witch, but still. Did it really have to be Marcus Flint?

The new marriage law, which is sparking huge debates and anger mostly everywhere, dropped announced in the middle of July, just a few weeks after Potter's hugely celebrated defeat of He Who Must Not Be Named in what is already known as the Battle of the Department of Mysteries somewhere deep within the Ministry. Pansy cannot for the life of her imagine what Black could be holding over Granger's head to convince her to marry him in a plot to help him avoid returning to Azkaban. Aside from all the obvious differences between the couple, Black has spent the last couple of years on the run from the aurors and being featured in the press as a raging and insane supporter of Granger's best friend's enemy number one.

Hardly husband-material, no matter how desperate Granger is.

Sure, Black is no longer a criminal in the eyes of the law, but still. It had been something of a huge scandal when the Ministry announced that Black had officially been pardoned some weeks after the defeat of the Dark Lord. Apparently, the Prophet had announced, the man had never been a supporter of He Who Must Not Be Named and had never committed the mass murder he was sentenced to life in Azkaban for. Personally, Pansy believes in Rita Skeeter's version of events. According to the hard-working journalist, Black had been present at the Battle of the Department of Mysteries, fighting viscously at his master's side against a bunch of teenagers and the Order of Phoenix, until it became obvious that the Dark Lord was no match for the Boy Who Lived. With the Dark Lord fighting a losing battle, Black took any chance he had of surviving the fight and promptly switched sides, allegedly even murdering his own cousin and fellow high ranking Death Eater – Bellatrix Lestrange – in cold blood in an attempt to prove to Potter and the old fool Pansy is forced to call her headmaster that the switch was genuine.

This isn't the first time Black has supposedly been a turncoat and switched sides, Pansy recalls. Draco's mother's cousin has apparently done something like this before, if the rumour mill is to be believed. In his youth, rumour has it, Black seemingly betrayed his pure-blood family in favour of running around with half-bloods and muggle-borns. Wonder how long the charade is going to last this time, Pansy muses, glancing down at the photographs in front of her.

Whatever the story is, Granger is sure to be in for a rough awakening. Poor little mudblood.

 

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you for reading and I hope you liked it!


End file.
